TRP Channels in Sensory Transduction

Juan Bacigalupo, born in Santiago, Chile, did his undergraduate in Biology at the Universidad de Chile, after which he obtained a position in the same university. He was trained in electrophysiology and biophysics in the renowned Laboratory of Montemar, Chile. He moved to Brandeis University (USA) for his doctoral studies. In this work he pioneered the patch clamp studies of single-channel currents in sensory receptor cells, working on Limulus photoreceptors. He then returned to Chile, focusing his research on the molecular and cellular bases of several modalities of sensory transduction as well as other aspects of sensory physiology and biophysics. He uses a variety of multidisciplinary tools, of which recording unitary transduction channel currents directly from sensory cilia and microvilli has been particularly successful in exploring the physiology of these highly specialized organelles, and represents a seal of his laboratory. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Presidential Chair in Science (Chile) and is President of the Chilean Society for Neuroscience.Rodolfo Madrid was born in Santiago, Chile. He did his PhD thesis with Juan Bacigalupo at the Universidad de Chile, where he was trained in electrophysiology, biophysics and sensory physiology. After a post-doctorate at the University of Washington, he moved to the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante. He contributed to unveil the role of the thermoTRP channel TRPM8 and Kv1 potassium channels in cold sensitivity and excitability of primary sensory neurons of the somatosensory system. He returned to Chile in 2008, where he settled his own laboratory at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, focusing his research on the study of the molecular and cellular bases of thermotransduction and nociception, the role of TRP channels and other voltage-sensitive channels in sensory physiology, as well as biophysics of thermoTRP channels. He uses multidisciplinary approaches that include patch clamping of primary sensory neurons, calcium imaging, extracellular recording of thermoreceptors and nociceptors ex vivo and molecular and cell biology tools. He is Associate Professor of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile and Director of the Doctoral Program in Neuroscience of this University.

• Preface.- Introduction.- Biophysical and molecular features of thermo sensitive TRP channels involved in sensory transduction.- Pharmacology of TRP channels.- Modulation of TRP channels by N-glycosylation and Phosphorylation.- TRP channels in visual transductions.- TRP channels in transduction for responses to odorants and pheromones.- TRP channels as targets for modulation of taste transduction.- TRP channels and mechanical transduction.- TRP channels in the sensation of heat.- TRP channels in cold transduction.- Mathematical modeling of TRPM8 and the cold thermoreceptors.

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